Dec 20, 2014

DONE!!! OOoh yes I'm finally done with the 2 images I had to make for the next Nuthin But Mech (book #3) by DSP, what a relief and just a day before leaving for our Xmas vacations. When I saved a Jpeg copy of the final Psd something strange happened, a very unexpected visual bug, I guess the memory ran out because of the huge size of those files?

So here it is, a sneak preview of what's coming and a nice little edit entirely done by total random digital luck :) Merry Christmas everyone and I wish y'all a Happy New Year, enjoy your break and party like there is no tomorrow!!! Love, T.

Nov 27, 2014

I have recently left Ubisoft to join the amazing teams behind the Hitman mobile games (award-winning Hitman GO and Sniper) and I am now a really proud Studio Art Director at Square-Enix Montreal. We are currently hard at work on some exciting titles for you nomad gamers :) the future is bright!!!
Working on Shape Upwas a great experience, I want to thank all of my colleagues in the Mile-End areaand wish y'all the best on your next projects.

Oct 21, 2014

This week I'll stay home and keep working on my images for Nuthin But Mech 3, it keeps me busy because it is actually a good pretext to learn MODO, now with the right set of mind and some free time I'm enjoying it. Forget my previous camper Sketchup model and here is what I'm working on, an AAV that has been transformed into an hovercraft, it has much more angular shapes to contrast with the drones (coming soon). I really like the modeling/sculpting tools and the renderer, it feels so smooth compared to Max and Maya, can't wait to know more and start using MeshFusion.

Oct 18, 2014

Shape Up is gold and it feels good! working on games can take a toll on any developer's carapace, it's a long and unpaved road with the same repetitive patterns of mistakes, overtime shifts and little happy victories, in the end when you get closer to the release date, there are gates you are proud to go through and "gold" is assuredly one of them... the game is really good and congrats to the team, keep it up for the final sprint! I can't wait to watch people playing it.

We also had a cool team party at Nacho Libre this week to celebrate the event, the next morning wasn't easy after so much rhum, tequilas and horrible memories of vintage fitness videos. #shapeup

Sep 29, 2014

VacatioOons!!! Yes at last, now that I have officially been released from Shape Up I can enjoy some well deserved time off! It was also a good moment to clean my desktop, so I got rid of my old PC tower, bought a nice Thunderbolt monitor and all the accessories like speakers, Wacom Intuos Pro, keyboard...etc. are now neatly plugged to the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock. No more clutter, it's a perfect setup and it's the 1st time in almost a year that I'm excited to seat here and be ready to work again :)

Ikea hack, efficient and clutter-free setup

Plug the laptop to these 2 cables and vamos!

I'm not a pro Apple at all but I have to admit that it is the best workstation I've ever had and the 27"monitor is just incredible. Don't hesitate to share your own setup and any tips to improve efficiency.

Aug 18, 2014

I haven't posted anything exciting for a long while and there are a lot of reasons. First, we are working like crazy to finish our game, which means lots of office hours, and also because when I finally have a little bit of free time, it's easily spent with my relatives and outside paddling... basically it feels like an overdose of computers. However it's difficult to escape some previous engagements so here is a little update on another project with the Nuthin' but Mech crew, I'll be featured in the #3book so there is some obvious pressure here > the artists are simply fantastic and their content is beyond awesomeness... can't slack on that one!!!

The final image will be exclusive to the book but I still can share the process, and these sketches :-)

Sketchup/PS, WIP research for Image #1 without any "mech" yet... #nuthinbutmech3

Jun 1, 2014

I'm really proud to announce the beginning of a new cool projectwith my old friends Kristy, Manu and Vyle. This is going to be different and fun :) please go and check it out and leave us some comments! #speedpaintingexplorers

May 2, 2014

Last summer I accepted to take on a freelance job for a friend working at Triotech, (a cool Montreal-based Cie. creating their own multi-sensory interactive attractions) I was really busy already and only did it because he insisted. At least it was a different experience working for a 3DXD rideinteractive short film, especially a Sci-fi one!

The goal was to make a classic "Aliens" type of story with quite stereotyped environments, creatures and vehicles so people felt at ease during the spooky ride. I invite you to go and try their XD theaters if you spot one in your area, it's a lot of fun!

SO... here are some Alien soldiers and their beloved slimy Queen, as I said it is not surprising but it was an interesting challenge to try to design something just slightly different from the usual space-bugs.

The fun part was to design a "transformer" type of heavy-armored buggy, that can also roll'n fly. I wish I had more time to spend defining all the details.

It was taking too much of my energy so I only worked on 2 interiors, the cockpit and a generic corridor. The challenge with 3D movie scenes is to add a lot of depth using objects or industrial parts that stick out for no reasons just because it looks cool on screen.

And I took the opportunity to learn a bit of SketchUp and V-Ray to block out a rough model of the Human spaceship (#10 was chosen, of course not my favorite)

Apr 14, 2014

Syn Studio has just released a podcast that we recorded a few months ago, un grand merci to the team for giving me the opportunity to talk and to introduce them to a specialty of my region in Southern France; le MuscatdeRivesaltes! Thank you Anthony for the shots of Vodka I hope it doesn't show because I felt the heat on my half-Asian cheeks, all apologies for everything that sound too weird... obviously it was happy hour time :-)

Mar 4, 2014

Honestly I personally never liked Superman as a superhero, with his ridiculous costume, logo, panties and overkill powers. When Ken came one day to tell me we had to make a pitch with this guy I was horrified, after Outrun and its douchebag plot, now the big muscles! It took me a while to give up to my professional conscience (weak!) and here are the results, can't remember exactly why the deal with Warner Bros. died but for once it felt good to lose a battle without going too far into prototyping :)

Jan 25, 2014

Here are some characters I made for the game, it was still at an early stage of development so nothing was set in stone yet, but the idea was to define the visual differences of the RN groups of racers and their correspondent attitudes.

The great thing about working at a small studio is that you have to help in any ways possible, while I was doing some illustrations and taking care of the visual direction, it was also necessary to help on the texture side (modeling and shaders > Gab). So the whole art team had to skin some cars and helmets, which was really fun and creative, some of mine below as well as some logos.

Jan 15, 2014

I just had a discussion with a friend and ex-Trapdoor guy and it ended up being very nostalgic, we had a great time over-there and the opportunity to try multiple genres, on different platforms. Here is the first part of a larger dump of illustrations/works done for an Ipad game we were working on after cancelling Heist. It was a retro-Sci-Fi asynchronous arcade-racing game with very tight controls, stunts and flames... it was also super addictive and supposed to be free-to-play. Mmmmehh too bad we couldn't release it! The cool 3D environments and level art below were mainly done by the art team and Yan Mongrain!

Some environment speedpainting researches done for the background of the interactive 3D menu selection.

The idea was to base our 1st models on classic cars such as the Shelby Cobra and the F1 Ferrari 1967 because we wanted to bring back the feeling of raw danger of competing in that era and let's face it, we love their shapes. So our futuristic world was about an underground extreme competition of nostalgic racers wanting to feel the engines, open cockpit, smoke and madness of the past. Research paintovers below.

Jan 11, 2014

Yesss I do like the Surface pro 2! Because it is a great tablet PC and its form factor is really practical, here is a speedie live portrait done in Sketchbook Pro just a few minutes ago at a café in Montreal. The Surface came with us in our recent road trips and we both loved it for surfing and blogging but I didn't spend any time drawing or painting, which was my initial reason to get it. I'll post some more images very soon but what I can say is that the Bamboo Stylus Feel is a nice addition and the tablet works really well.

Café speedpainting tests using the Wacom Bamboo Feel pen

The main advantages of a tablet PC over the traditional laptop + graphic tablet configuration is its versatility and ergonomic (and definitely footprint), you can handle it the way you want much like you do with a classic sketchbook, it's small and easy to use. With its integrated kickstand and added keyboard it is a breeze to use the Surface Pro and it was very comfortable in the position you see above, allowing me to use the shortcuts while painting. Yup, even if Sketchbook Pro's interfacehas been perfectly optimized for touch screens it's still faster with a keyboard, btw this is a great software and I highly recommend it! Reminds me so much of traditional medias.